New

Doc Martin Season Comes to WETA

Series 9 airs Saturdays at 9 p.m.

starting July 1 on WETA UK; and Sundays at 7 p.m. starting July 2 on WETA PBS; binge-watch as of July 1 with WETA Passport

It’s been a four-year wait, but the British comedy-drama Doc Martin finally returns to WETA with a ninth season featuring eight new episodes. Martin Clunes reprises his signature role as the titular character, Dr. Martin Ellingham, the erudite but socially challenged doctor in the small coastal Cornwall village of Portwenn. Caroline Catz again portrays the physician’s wife Louisa, who with Martin is raising their young son James Henry and has resigned from her job as headmistress at the local school to pursue a new career in child counseling.

In Season 9, all other regular members of the cast of quirky villagers reprise their roles as well. Dame Eileen Atkins (Cranford) once more plays Martin’s formidable Aunt Ruth. Ian McNeice (Doctor Who) is back to play Bert Large, with Joe Absolom (A Confession) as his son Al. John Marquez is PC Joe Penhale, Jessica Ransom is the doctor’s receptionist Morwenna Newcross and Selina Cadell is pharmacist Mrs. Tishell. Season 9 guest stars include Danny Huston (Succession), James Lance (Ted Lasso), and Conleth Hill (Magpie Murders; Game of Thrones).

In the previous season, the blood-phobic doctor experienced a disaster with a patient. In the new episodes, Martin’s medical career hangs in the balance as the General Medical Council (GMC) assesses his ability and determines whether he is fit to continue practicing medicine. In other plotlines, Al takes a big step, Mrs. Tishell enjoys a new lease on life, Ruth has new concerns, and the doctor himself must become a patient.

Doc Martin, Series 9 will be available for binge-viewing with WETA Passport as of July 1.

Grantchester, Series 8 on Masterpiece

New episodes air Sundays at 9 p.m. starting July 9 on WETA PBS & WETA Metro; binge-watch

with WETA Passport

Popular mystery series Grantchester, based on The Grantchester Mysteries — collections of stories of James Runcie — returns in July with six new Season 8 episodes starring Tom Brittney as intuitive, sleuthing Anglican vicar Will Davenport and Robson Green as gruff, overworked policeman Detective Inspector Geordie Keating, a World War II veteran. The pair, an unlikely crimefighting duo in the small Cambridgeshire village of the series’ title, solve cases together. The program is set in the late 1950s.

The new season opens with Geordie and his wife Cathy (Kacey Ainsworth) content in their rebuilt relationship, and Will happily married to Cathy’s niece Bonnie (Charlotte Ritchie). But fate introduces a stunning development that will rock Will’s life and shifts everything in Grantchester. Meanwhile, when Geordie and Cathy are each confronted with surprising announcements from work, will it threaten their newfound happiness? Mrs. C, Leonard, Jack and Daniel rally around as Will and Geordie find themselves in unfamiliar, emotional waters, with murder always around the corner. Exploring faith, forgiveness and redemption, the new season’s explosive storyline tests the Grantchester protagonists to the limit.

Binge-watch the new Grantchester episodes with WETA Passport as of the first new episode’s broadcast premiere on July 9; and stream Series 1-7 with WETA Passport as well.

D.I. Ray

Sundays at 10 p.m.

starting July 9 on WETA PBS & WETA Metro; binge-watch with WETA Passport

When British Asian policewoman

DI Rachita Ray performs exceptionally well in a stressful arrest, she is offered a promotion, moving into the Homicide team in the Birmingham-based police force. She’s ready to step up, but her excitement is tempered when her boss, DCI Kerry Henderson, briefs her on her case, a CSH (“culturally specific homicide”) involving the suspected honor killing of a young Muslim man. She quickly realizes the suspects can’t be guilty: the evidence against the two brothers from a British Hindu family is flimsy at best. Her attempts at conveying this to her superiors and her colleagues fall on deaf ears and hidden biases — their keenness to wrap up the case signals that no one is listening to her. That is, until her probing leads the team to a much more sinister crime. In the four-part drama starring Parminder Nagra (ER; Bend It Like Beckham), DI Ray embarks on a journey that sees her uncover a complex web of deceit within organized crime, while laying bare the wounds deep within herself that she has spent a lifetime ignoring, born from a strong desire to “fit in.”

Hope Street, Bancroft & Midsomer Murders on WETA PBS Thriller Thursdays

Hope Street and Bancroft start Thursday, July 20

After Masterpiece mystery series Van der Valk concludes July 13 on Thriller Thursdays, beginning July 20

WETA features the crime dramas Hope Street (Series 2) at 8 p.m. and Bancroft at 9 p.m. Ongoing presentation Midsomer Murders (Series 2), starring John Nettles and Daniel Casey, continues at 10 p.m.

Hope Street, Series 2 • A crime series set in the fictional northern Irish town of Port Devine follows the team at the local police station as it investigates cases. The storyline of Series 2’s 10 episodes pick up half a year after events of the first season, in which Inspector Finn O’Hare (Ciarán McMenamin, Primeval) experienced a brush with death. A haunted man, he remains in fierce denial that he is anything other than fine; but trustworthy Sergeant Marlene Pettigrew (Kerri Quinn) becomes acting Inspector in his stead. In the new episodes, the Port Devine police station is joined by a laid-back new detective, Al Quinn (Stephen Hagan), whose willful daughter turns up and plunges him into a moral and ethical dilemma. Meanwhile, underestimated Police Constable Callum McCarthy (Niall Wright) is always observing.

Bancroft, Series 1 • This powerful psychological thriller from the director of Vera spotlights the ultimate anti-heroine. Formidable Detective Chief Superintendent Elizabeth Bancroft — portrayed by Sarah Parish (Broadchurch; W1A) — is riding a professional high, leading the charge against a violent gang. Meanwhile, Detective Sergeant Katherine Stevens (Faye Marsay, Game of Thrones) is given a cold case to solve: the murder of a young woman, Laura Fraser, years before. As Elizabeth and Katherine’s paths cross for the first time, Katherine finds that there’s more to the Fraser case than it seems — and Elizabeth has some secrets in her past that return to haunt her. Art Malik co-stars as Detective Chief Superintendent Alan Taheeri. The 2017 drama features four episodes in Series 1; a second season features three episodes.